31_days | [Aug 2][Kamen Rider Den-O] Hospitality

Title: Hospitality
Day/ Theme: August 2 / purveyor of magic and miracle
Series: Kamen Rider Den-O
Characters: Airi, Ryoutaro
Rating: G
Warning: post the main series

What a frightful day, Ryou-chan said, but Airi was quite happy with it. Her brother has already wondered twice if they should open the coffee shop at all. Airi just smiled. There was a foot of snow outside; they've come on swift, noiseless wings, settling overnight as if a millennia has passed instead, dusting fine white over the world.

"Nee-chan," Ryoutarou said, as he came puffing in, "there's no one outside. The snow's so thick you can't see a thing."

Perhaps they were indeed wings, wings of a multitude of storks, come to bring belated her Christmas presents. Perhaps their wings were worn down to this sugar after their mad dash to here, to a holiday already passed. What a morbid thought... storks flying en masse, cloaking the sky, and then disintegrating at the final stretch.

But how many of them, Airi wondered, how many of these hypothetical storks would try to before they succeed in delivering her present? How many more Christmases? Januaries?

"Do you really think someone will be out and about in this weather?" Ryoutarou asked.

Her brother had probably guessed her train of thought. "If there is," Airi said, "that someone will be happy there's a warm place to take shelter from this snowstorm. We can be someone's beacon of hope, Ryou-chan."

And she could hope. In a lost time, she opened her hands to let go, to let this hope fly free and flee its doom. Maybe one day it would make its way back to her. Someday.

"They can see the lights," she added.

"Lights?"

"Through the snow. They can find us by the cafe's warmth."

"Nee-chan, I honestly think your admirers can find you in a forest, even if they're blindfolded and earmuffed."

Airin laughed. "Then we shouldn't go out of business any time soon."

She opened the door to see her brother's handiwork outside, a neat path from the street corner to the entrance of the coffee shop. The glib air hissed at her, but the snow itself was light, airy. When she closed her eyes, it reminded her of falling petals instead.
Would they bring today what they had taken away once upon a time? They might. They just might. So how could she possibly think the day frightful at all?

Airi smiled as she closed the door to keep the heat in. When the time comes, when the person comes, her door would not begrudge him entry. And she promised herself she would never be inhospitable, even if she failed to recognize him the first few visits.

Even if she trusted him to return till she did.

6:45 08012012

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